


Madness and Sorrow

by Silverheart



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:59:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverheart/pseuds/Silverheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of the Blight, there is pain, and regret, and mourning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Madness

He did not expect to see her again.

Her eyes are hollow and broken, and she bears a terrible limp. She hasn’t changed from her blood-stained and battle-torn robes since she had returned to the Tower. The clothing turns her into something exotic and wild and dangerous.

Morwen Surana is different, and he shouldn’t care. But he does, so badly it makes his already shattered heart crumble to grains of sand.

“Cullen,” she says neutrally, almost like one of the Tranquil.

“Morwen,” he answers, and his voice trembles from the memory of the demon’s visions. Those robes reveal enough, almost, to start them again. “I hadn’t thought you would return.” He remembered the other Warden, the former Templar, blond and tall and kissing her deeply in the shadows before they set off from the ruined Tower…

“I have,” was all she said.

And so things go on and the world rebuilds. The Tower is cleaned of blood and wreckage, and the disease that infested the very stones of the upper levels is purged by Morwen herself single handedly. More Templars come as replacements to aid in cleaning as much as in watching.

Cullen finds himself filing a report to Gregoir almost every other day. He sees things, he tells the Knight-Commander, he hears the mages talking.  It could be another rebellion at any time.  The older mages cannot enforce the rules now, even if they wanted to.

The old man, whose hair had gone from gray to white when the Tower had almost been lost, tells him he is being paranoid.

\----

The First Enchanter hunts him down—how ironic—one day. “Cullen,” he says, “It is good to see you are on the mend.”

He nods without a word, helmet clinking lightly on his breastplate.

“Perhaps you should speak with Senior Enchanter Surana. She is…not adjusting. I know…I think she would enjoy it.” He sighs wearily. “It would be good to see her smile again, you know.”

Cullen just stands and watches. After a while, Irving leaves.

\----

He didn’t mean to find her, but he did anyway. His heart’s a traitor, well he knows.

He stands guard, watching with some of _that_ in his gaze still, he knows, while she pours over an old tome.  He can’t watch her like the others, he knows, even now, when he knows what mages really are. All that she has been through and she alone has remained uncorrupted.

Though not unhurt.

"In death, sacrifice,” she says, suddenly, her voice breaking on the third word. It makes him start. She doesn’t continue, and he knows she isn’t speaking to him, or anyone…anyone living.

The clink of his armor drew her attention. “Cullen.”

He nods once, and against his better judgment, reaches up and removes his helmet.  She gazes at him silently with brown eyes. Maker, she is beautiful.  “What happened?” he asks, gently, unable to resist. He has always been unable to resist with her.

“Much.” For a moment he thinks that’s all she’ll say, continuing her new viciously taciturn ways. “The Archdemon _had_ to die. A Grey Warden _had_ to die to kill it.”

“Your…” He can’t say it. Dimly, an angry fire burns in his heart, a pale echo of the one he had felt when he saw the pair embracing in the shadows. She is a mage, and he cannot feel this way, no matter that he had felt this way once. There were horrible things inside of her.

“Yes. Alistair is…gone.” Her voice hitches. “Someday, I will follow.” She gazes blankly at the wall over his shoulder. “He was a Templar, once, you know.” The statement hangs between them. “Soon, maybe, I will go to the Deep Roads again and…” She shudders. “Sacrifice.”

He wonders stupidly when she had gone where he could not follow, but swiftly remembers that she was born into someplace he cannot go.  She is a breeding ground for demons, and were he a better man he would strike her down now, he would kill them all, but, oh, he cannot lift his sword against her anymore today than ever.

\----

She left within a fortnight.

Cullen had…sensed it, maybe, and that’s why he is standing at the main doors of the Tower when she approaches them.

He can’t bring himself to beg her to stay. “Where are you going?” he asks, his voice lacking the authority he seeks.

“Orzammar, then the Deep Roads,” she answers, “Irving knows, Gregoir knows. I have permission, Cullen.”

“Are you going to…to die, then?”

“Eventually.”

“You will leave the Circle then?” Why is he so desperate about this? Her life is hers to end as she sees fit, and good riddance. One less mage to plague the world. “And the Wardens?”

“The Circle doesn’t need my aid any longer,” she tells him, “The Wardens are being rebuilt by more skilled hands.”

He can’t say anything.  He wants to say everything, but he just _can’t_.

Morwen is suddenly right there, in front of him, near him like she had been on the day of her Harrowing.  He realizes that he has forgotten his helmet. “Don’t let the darkness consume you, Cullen,” she says, standing so very, very close, “I wish…oh, we all wish.” She stands on tip toe to kiss him lightly on the lips. He forces himself to stand still and cold, like a statue. “Maker watch over you.”

He shuts his eyes as she moves past, and doesn’t open them until the door is shut behind her.

\----

She is dead, now, he supposes, and the shadows settle in.


	2. Sorrow

Why the blight was in the tower, she doesn’t know. The Fade…the City…the Blight…she remembers Avernus’ notes, and lets it go. If there’s an answer to be found, she isn’t the one who will find it. There’s not much left in her, not now. Not anymore.

It’s so unlike the day she passed her Harrowing, the day she knew she could do anything.  That’s why she’d aided Jowan, thinking in her elation that maybe she could make it all right. It’s why she cornered Cullen, sweet Cullen who’d been chosen to make the death blow, and stood so close to him that her heart fluttered like a small bird…

Yes, it’s very unlike that day.

She taps her staff on the ground. She can feel the unnatural sickness around her, though it lacks the hideous strength of that in the Deep Roads. Through it, she can almost hear…but just almost.

The infection’s not deep, and fire will do the job. With a burst of raw will, she unleashes a firestorm upon the blighted room. It burns the sickness away, scorches the stones black and makes them sizzle.

Morwen leans against her staff wearily as she watches the flames die. It’s been quite a few rooms of this by herself. She had asked to do this alone for fear that others could be tainted.  It’s so different, being alone here.  No bickering, no barking, no prayers or observations, no wisecracks, no solid shield to defend her, no sword to carve the way…

She doesn’t know if she can forgive Alistair, sometimes. He’d stopped her from stopping him, knowing well enough that would be her plan. And people called him stupid.  He’d used his Templar training, draining her strength as he kissed her one last time, and leaving her in a crumpled useless heap to watch as he slew the Archdemon and died.

Ultimately, she could forgive him. Love does that.  She admits that eventually whenever the thought crosses her mind.

Morwen sighs and stands up straight. On to the next room.

 ----

Cullen’s not the same. She had hoped he might recover, but it doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen.

He is suspicious to the point of paranoia. He watches like a hawk of stone, now, but oh, sometimes her gaze will cross his and underneath the pain and the terrible shadows there is still _Cullen_.

There is nothing to be done, for either him or her, and she knows it. She is so tired.

Wynne returns to the Tower eventually—no doubt her time in Denerim had been spent scolding Anora, who deserves it in the worst way—and they speak of neutral things. Once the older mage hits upon Alistair, upon what a good person he was, a true knight, and Morwen Surana collapses into tears.

“I’m sorry, “ Wynne says, holding her as she cries, “I didn’t mean to cause you pain.”

“No.” She pulls away and hides her face in her hands.  “I had the power to save him in my reach, do you know that?”

“I know. He used his Templar abilities on you, I know. You were about to do similar to him.”

That isn’t what she meant, but it doesn’t matter.  Morrigan’s ritual…she couldn’t have done that to him. He hated the witch, and loved Morwen, and she simply could not have done that to him.

She continues to weep. Cullen, standing like a statute, watches from along the wall. His helmet hides his face from her.

She is so tired.

\----

She decides.  “The Legion of the Dead does not have mages to either heal or hurt. I can do more good for them now than for Ferelden…more good for everyone.” She has done what she can for the Circle, and she knows it. She is a Senior Enchanter now. To have her teach with all she knows would be dangerous—they all think that but won’t say it. And she won’t become mired in mage politics.

Irving sighs. “I fear you are right, and it gives me great pain to say it. What of the Wardens? Do they need you?”

“No.” That had been made abundantly clear by the Orleisans who had come to rebuild. A female mage elf, mentally and physically wounded, wasn’t wanted.

One good thing about the Blight really was how it brought everyone together.  She wishes she could tell Alistair that.

“Then you may go.” He gets creakily to his feet. “I have no doubt you will be of great aid to those in need.”

She wants to hug this old father figure, but she just can’t bring herself to do it. Instead, she lays her hand gently on his. “Thank you, Irving.”

She will go to the Deep Roads, to the Dead Trenches, and there she will wait to join her love.

\----

She kisses Cullen once, lightly, for lives unlived. Perhaps, if the world had been different, they might have ripped the rules to shreds between them.

She is so very tired.

Once the doors close behind her and she tastes the night air, she slumps against the Tower’s old stone and _remembers_. Remembers Alistair’s arms warm around, remembers his kisses, remembers nights in a tent lit by moonlight, skin against skin, heartbeat to heartbeat.

The wind picks up and forces her back to the bitter present. She tramps to the ferry in silence, drifts across the lake in silence, and walks towards the lonely ruins on the shore in silence.

She really would be a terrible teacher, for all the reasons everyone thinks.  She’d walked with an apostate, complete bitch as she was, and had learned some forbidden tricks.

A lone wolf bounds to the west, letting lose a mournful howl.


End file.
